Shelach – the spies and… the golden calf??

If you look at the story of the מרגלים and the punishment that followed there are eerie echoes to another famous sin the Jewish people committed. It was in fact, the first national sin that we committed. The sin of the עגל הזהב, the golden calf.

Let’s go through a few of the parallels.

1- the מרגלים traverse ארץ ישראל in 40 days after which they bring a negative report back to the people, and Moshe is in שמים for 40 days at the end of which the people create the calf.

2- חז”ל tell us that Aharon watched the people stone חור to death and the פסוק here says that they wanted to stone כלב to death (fun fact, כלב was חור‘s father)

3- in both cases we have the concept of קול. By the עגל, Yehoshua hears a קול in the camp, and tells Moshe it is a קול מלחמה, a voice of was. Moshe corrects him and says, it is not the sounds of victorious cries, nor of screams of those defeated and surrendering, it is a קול ענות, typically translated as a distressed sound. But the word ענות can also mean to answer, and when you answer someone you are giving to them with your voice. Now look at how קול appears in our פרשה, ותשא כל העדה ויתנו את קולם. Here too they are giving their voice.

4- there are only two times that Hashem tells Moshe that He will destroy the nation and start over with Moshe. One is here, and the other is by the עגל. And in both cases Hashem says the same words, ואעשה אותך לגוי גדול. And in both places Moshe uses the same defense, Hashem, You can’t do that. It would be a desecration of Your Name, since all the nations would think that You couldn’t care for the people, so You murdered them.

5- Moshe uses a phrase here that seems strange, he tells Hashem, והמתה את העם כאיש אחד, You will kill the nation like one man. But that phrase כאיש אחד was borrowed by Rashi to describe how the nation camped when they came to הר סיני, כאיש אחד בלב אחד. Almost like Moshe is calling on Hashem’s mercy, to remember how united and committed the people were then.

6- in both places the י”ג מדות are used to further call on Hashem’s mercy to spare the nation.

7- Hashem says that כלב is rewarded since “וימלא אחרי” he filled his heart to go after Me. And when the kohanim kill the aggressors in the story of the עגל Moshe tells them, מלאו ידכם, fill your hands with service to Hashem.

8- in both cases the people mourn because of the sin, and the word ויתאבלו is used.

Ok, so we’ve seen 8 parallels throughout the stories, but what do they all mean? And why does the sin of the עגל not have immediate repercussions (Hashem only says that I will punish for the sin at a later date in time) while the sin of the spies does, and all the people involved die as a result?

I think that the Torah is meant to be a guide for how we are meant to live in this world in preparation for the next world. And the stories of the Torah are for the most part themed around the Jewish nation making their journey toward their destination of ארץ ישראל. And, every journey needs two things: a destination and a guide to help get there. These two major national עבירות are the places where we took our eye off those key components of our journey. At the עגל we said, קום עשה לנו אלהים אשר ילכו לפנינו כי זה משה האיש לא ידענו מה היה לו. Get up and make us a god that will walk before us, since we do not know what happened to Moshe the man. Moshe was our guide that had taken us out of מצרים and without him we didn’t have a guide, no one to walk before us and show us the way. By the מרגלים, we obviously lost faith in the destination. We believed terrible news about ארץ ישראל, that it was a bad place and that we were too weak to conquer it. I think this is what the stories have in common and why they are linguistically paralleled by the Torah.

In both cases we made the same mistake, we are meant to always know that Hashem runs the world and that He is coordinating everything. He is our true Guide and He takes us to our destinations. Moshe was merely a servant of Hashem, and when he didn’t show up when we expected we still had Hashem to rely on, and that should have been enough for us. And the wars we would fight when entering the land, Hashem would fight those for us, all we needed to do was show up. But we got sidetracked and thought that if the spies said we can’t, then we can’t.

There is one difference however. You see, when we sin and make mistakes, we need to always know that Hashem is bigger than our sin, we are bigger than our sin, and our relationship is bigger than our sin. And after even the most egregious עבירות we can stare our sin in the face and then walk/run/jump/dance back to Hashem, say “Hashem, I love you and I know You love me and I sinned. I am sorry. Please forgive me and help me come back to You.” The people take off the crowns that Hashem gave them by קבלת התורה after they realize how bad their sin was. And this is also the first thing Moshe does when he goes back to ask for forgiveness. He tells the peopleאתם חטאתם חטאה גדולה, you committed a big sin. Then he climbs the mountain and tells Hashemאנא חטא העם הזה חטאה גדולה, please, this nation committed a big sin. But the next day after the מרגלים, a group of people tried to ignore their sin, and say, “we’ll go up to ארץ ישראל now, we can still do it” and they climb the mountain to go up. But they missed the boat, yes, we are bigger than our sins, but after a sin our relationship changes and must take on a new dynamic to exist. We need to stare the עבירה in the face, acknowledge it, and then redefine how we relate to Hashem post-sin. These people tried to cover it over and say, we can still be the same as if nothing happened. And that is how the story tragically ends, with these people getting beaten and struck down by עמלק and כנען.

May we all have the confidence and strength to look our sins in the face, say “I am bigger and stronger than you” and be able to find our new dynamic relationship with our Loving Creator.